[HN Gopher] Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively ba...
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Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)
Author : tosh
Score : 279 points
Date : 2022-01-25 19:03 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.polygon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.polygon.com)
| tribby wrote:
| another example of this kind of intentionality from nintendo is
| the curve on top of SNES, which is there to discourage setting
| drinks on top of it, unlike the NES before it
| jonny_eh wrote:
| The SNES is also top loaded (like the Famicom), so wouldn't
| normally be a good drink surface.
| addaon wrote:
| This is the same chemical (denatonium benzoate) that's used in
| fingernail-biting-prevention aids like nail polishes; it's very
| bitter, but non-toxic.
| w0mbat wrote:
| My daughter was sucking her thumb even on the first ultrasound.
| When she was a baby, thumb sucking was cute and she never
| needed a pacifier. However as she got to be a toddler it became
| a problem in terms of hygiene (her thumb was often not clean).
| Plus her thumb was pushing her front teeth out of line, which
| was affecting her speech.
|
| We pleaded with her to stop.
|
| We bribed her.
|
| We got special pretty thumb covers for her to wear at night.
| She always pulled them off.
|
| Finally we got the special nail polish containing the bad taste
| agent and put it on her thumbnails. One application was enough.
| The first try tasted so bad it put her off thumb sucking for
| life. It's been years now and she is cured. Thanks, denatonium
| benzoate!
| xen0 wrote:
| If you own a Switch, I encourage you to drop whatever it is
| you're doing and go lick one of the cartridges.
|
| You need to experience this.
| progbits wrote:
| Definitely second this. I have been downloading all my Switch
| games but bought one cheap cartridge just to see what all the
| craze was about.
|
| It did not disappoint, no matter how bitter you think it can
| be, it is worse. The aftertaste lasts for a very long time and
| rinsing your mouth makes little difference.
| testplzignore wrote:
| I just licked my $60 Super Mario Odyssey cart. I'm not tasting
| it :( I am so disappointed...
| testplzignore wrote:
| Same for Metroid Dread. Maybe I'm missing a gene or
| something.
| pampa wrote:
| Just licked mario + rabbids I got yesterday. Tastes ok.
| jwineinger wrote:
| I'm gonna avoid licking the cartridge I checked out from our
| library.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| I was unfortunately reminded this when swapping out game
| cartridges on a flight once. I stuck one in my mouth a bit to
| hold it while I messed with the carrying case and other cartridge
| and had the awful bitter taste for the rest of the flight.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I haven't even put a cartridge in my mouth and I've still had
| to experience it. I think I swapped out some cartridges, and a
| moment later licked my finger for some reason. Turns out that
| the agent lingers on your fingers after you handle the games.
| mikestew wrote:
| _...and had the awful bitter taste for the rest of the flight._
|
| Thanks for saving my lunch by letting me know that it is not
| just a momentary bit of unpleasantness, because I was about to
| go grab one from the Switch case here at 11:46 in the morning
| just to see how bad it is.
|
| EDIT: curiosity got the best of me. If I can eat a green
| persimmon, I can handle a Nintendo cartridge. A little lick of
| the sticker tells me not to put the whole thing in my mouth.
| Lunch should be fine, though. :-)
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| Just FYI if you actually want to taste it, the bitterness is
| in the sticker, not the cartridge itself.
| vel0city wrote:
| I've got a pile of Switch cartridges next to me. They're
| bitter all over. Trust me.
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| Fair enough, I just remember that I couldn't figure out
| the fuss until someone told me to lick the sticker.
| vel0city wrote:
| It could be that way on some of them, or maybe even the
| earlier ones, but all the ones I've tested are nasty
| tasting on the plastic as well.
| [deleted]
| arrrg wrote:
| Eh, when I got a Switch last year I tried it out right away
| (after reading such articles in the past) and if you just
| give it a careful lick you will immediately notice it but
| it's not as if it's lingering around forever.
| azeirah wrote:
| Oh maybe it depends per person but I'm the kind of person who
| needs to know how bitter it is (like you!)
|
| And it lasted for maybe 30 seconds, maybe it's different if
| you realllllyyy get into it but I wouldn't advise that
| anyway.
| spicybright wrote:
| Can confirm, was about 30 seconds. It bound to my lips for
| a bit but you can just lick that off.
|
| Article was not wrong about the taste.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Trivia. I ate green persimmons, but there is a trick. It
| --must-- be a persimmon from the correct cultivar (or a
| treated one). It doesn't worth it, but is perfectly doable.
| Somebody trying the same in a common persimmon will suffer
| the persimmoncalypse.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Yes. In the EU product "denatured alcohol" for most purposes is
| likewise treated with the same agent. This replaces the
| widespread use of methanol and similar products which are
| poisonous (yes even if you call the product "meths" it probably
| isn't methanol in the EU today). The rationale is that poisoning
| people is not an appropriate reaction to attempted tax avoidance.
| Alcohol is only "denatured" because booze is taxed, there's no
| technical reason to use poison, and so the EU took the poison
| out, for the same reason it doesn't execute or torture criminals.
| 323 wrote:
| Drinking this medical disinfectant denaturated alcohol has
| become a meme in Romania, where very poor people drink it
| because it's so cheap - $1.5 for 1L of 70% ABV (almost twice
| Vodka strength which is about 40% ABV).
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdZuHPjJtgs&t=1825s
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I've seen alcoholic patients try to drink alcohol 70%
| antiseptic solutions in the emergency room.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| While Mona is a disinfectant, it _is_ ethanol, only the
| production method differs, it's obtained through industrial
| processes (or so it was explained to my by someone who worked
| at some industrial alcohol synthesis factory) as opposed to
| fermentation and distillation. Drinking methanol will fucking
| blind or kill you, so... a bad idea overall.
|
| Interestingly a valid treatment for methanol poisoning is
| ethanol:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity#Treatment
| shmoe wrote:
| If I remember it overloads the uptake of the methanol or
| something along those lines. Crazy stuff.
| andai wrote:
| Very interesting. It's not the methanol that's toxic but
| its metabolites, so the ethanol slows down the liver's
| metabolism of methanol, stretching it out to the degree
| that the metabolites do not reach an unsafe
| concentration?
|
| Also, "The preferred antidote is fomepizole, with ethanol
| used if this is not available."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity#Treatment
|
| >Fomepizole is a competitive inhibitor of the enzyme
| alcohol dehydrogenase, found in the liver. This enzyme
| plays a key role in the metabolism of ethylene glycol,
| and of methanol.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fomepizole
| oblio wrote:
| mitilicu' :-))
| 3np wrote:
| Well, for Sweden there's the national monopoly, so denaturing
| it means being able to sell it for private establishments like
| hardware shops... And also not requiring an ID check and being
| > 20yo to buy.
|
| The reasoning is public health. You can argue that it's not a
| preferred solution but there's definitely more than tax to it.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Does this bitterant leave a residue when the alcohol
| evaporates? That seems like one benefit of methanol vs
| bitterant: all of the alcohol can still evaporate without
| depositing bitterant as a side effect.
|
| Are there bitterants that evaporate similarly to alcohol but
| are not toxic?
| legulere wrote:
| Here in Germany they add Butanone, which evaporates at very
| similar temperatures as ethanol so it's very difficult to
| purify the ethanol even with a lab setup.
| [deleted]
| arghwhat wrote:
| We use isopropyl alcohol, which is not denatured, whenever
| high purity is required.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Or in a pinch, 99% grain alcohol.
|
| Source: some friends make drinks with grain alcohol, and
| then don't want it any more after they make those drinks
| (gee, I wonder why?). Provides an essentially endless
| supply of alcohol for cleaning purposes for me.
| kunai wrote:
| If you're using alcohol for cleaning 70% concentrations
| are better as they actually kill and lyse pathogens at
| that concentration, while 99% will just desiccate them,
| allowing for reactivation when in a moist environment.
| lstodd wrote:
| My hands, from working with NF/USP Isopropyl alcohol tend
| to disagree. It desiccates, defats, and generally kills
| everything in sight.
| kunai wrote:
| Of course alcohol is a powerful solvent at any
| concentration, but there are definitely studies[1] that
| demonstrate 70% being a bit more effective at
| disinfecting.
|
| [1]: https://www.webmd.com/first-aid/ss/rubbing-alcohol-
| uses
| morganvachon wrote:
| That's always been the rule of thumb that I learned
| growing up too. My dad kept 90% or stronger
| concentrations for cleaning electrical contacts and other
| industrial uses, and 70% for first aid and sanitizing,
| because that's what each was made for.
| 323 wrote:
| The bitterent used is so powerful, the concentration is like
| 0.01 ppm. So unless you are in a clean room, there will be
| more dust from air which deposits.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium
| chrisshroba wrote:
| I'm sorry for my ignorance, but could someone give more context
| on this? I don't understand what "denatured alcohol" is, how it
| relates to tax avoidance, or what illegal use people are
| finding for it?
| vondur wrote:
| Many countries levy a tax on alcohol in beverages. One way
| around that is to put something in it that makes anyone who
| drinks it sick. If you have an industrial process that can
| use denatured alcohol, then you don't have to pay the alcohol
| tax.
| hoangdung123 wrote:
| yeah same
| wodenokoto wrote:
| You tax alcohol for consumption but not for cleaning
| products, like rubbing alcohol.
|
| Now you need to figure out a way to stop people from
| consuming cleaning products.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Rubbing alcohol is often isopropyl alcohol instead of
| ethanol, which makes it even more toxic.
| andai wrote:
| More toxic than what? I assumed you meant than methanol
| (which is added to ethanol-based cleaning products in the
| Netherlands), but then I read this on the Wikipedia page
| for isopropyl alcohol:
|
| >Isopropyl alcohol, via its metabolites, is somewhat more
| toxic than ethanol, but considerably less toxic than
| ethylene glycol or methanol.
|
| (Can't link link to the page due to mysterious iOS
| bug...)
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Than ethanol (or denaturated ethanol).
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| All the rubbing alcohol around here is isopropyl alcohol,
| not ethanol.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Governments started adding poison to alcohol products that
| are not meant for human consumption. They did this because
| people would buy products like rubbing alcohol to produce
| alcoholic drinks at home, since they were cheaper (e.g.
| avoiding sales taxes).
| greiskul wrote:
| There are many uses for Ethanol like starting fires, some
| stoves, not to mention industrial uses. Alcoholic beverages
| are normally taxed with a 'sin tax' to discourage
| consumption. Goverments realized that people could just drink
| Ethanol that was sold for other uses, maybe mixed with stuff
| to make cocktails, but that circumvents the 'sin tax' i.e.
| tax avoidance.
|
| So some countries sell
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol, which is
| alcohol with additives to discourage consumption. Some
| countries limit themselves to just adding a foul taste and
| smell, while some add poisonous substances to it to make it
| toxic.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Alcohol is extremely useful for many things but some people
| will drink it if they find it. So they add denatonium to it
| to discourage that. Alcohols that are meant for people to
| drink are taxed more heavily, so adding denatonium puts it
| into a completely different category of product thereby
| avoiding all those taxes.
| southerntofu wrote:
| > for the same reason it doesn't execute or torture criminals.
|
| I don't disagree with the idea, but to be precise torture and
| execution at the hand of police and secret services is still a
| thing in the EU. Especially since the covid lockdowns started
| almost two years ago, it seems police murders have raised
| significantly in some parts of the EU (like France).
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| The best data I could find was the following
| https://wp.unil.ch/space/files/2021/12/SPACE-
| II_2020_Final_r...
|
| Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics - SPACE II - 2020 -
| so evidently 2021 not published yet.
|
| that is the full report maybe take this https://wp.unil.ch/sp
| ace/files/2021/06/KeyFindings_Probation... which is the
| keyfindings and a quicker read.
|
| Figure 3 on page 5 (in the keyfindings document) - Probation
| and Prison population rates (per 100,000 inhabitants) on 31st
| January 2020 shows the median prison population is 103 per
| 100,000
|
| where probation is concerned on 31st January 2020, there were
| 1,512,765 probationers under the supervision of the 31
| probation agencies of the Council of Europe member states
| which use the person as the counting unit for their stock of
| probationers...
|
| which would lead to a probation population rate of 311
| probationers per 100,000 inhabitants. However, when the
| European median value is estimated on the basis of the
| population and the number of probationers of each country, it
| corresponds to 149 probationers per 100,000 inhabitants
|
| in Table 3 on page 16 shows Composition of the probation and
| prison populations on 31st January 2020 and mortality during
| 2019.
|
| Is your suggestion that some part of these deaths are
| killings by the EU authorities as a part of policy /
| extrajudicial killing, or do you mean that there are other
| deaths that are not in this table. If so - your sources for
| this claim please?
| jessriedel wrote:
| Whether it's reasonable to use poison as a disincentive needs
| to depend on how often people consume it, accidentally or
| purposefully. If it's extremely rare, then this is a reasonable
| use case, even if we don't think poisoning is a reasonable
| punishment for tax avoidance (because, indeed, the poison is
| not intended to be a punishment).
|
| Likewise, we put up physical barriers like metal posts and
| concrete walls to dissuade drivers from crossing certain lines
| even though it would obviously be outrageous to punish a driver
| for crossing a lane line by smashing their car. As long as
| drivers strike these very rarely, it's reasonable to use these
| as disincentives.
|
| By all means, if we find disincentives (like bittering agents)
| that are just as effective with even less risk, we should use
| them. But claiming that poison is being used as a punishment
| for tax avoidance is unjustified.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _If it 's extremely rare, then this is a reasonable use
| case_
|
| You never actually gave a reason for that assertion.
|
| > _Whether it 's reasonable to use poison as a disincentive
| ..._ > _(because, indeed, the poison is not intended to be a
| punishment)_
|
| What is the difference between "disincentive" and
| "punishment" here?
|
| > "Likewise, we put up physical barriers*
|
| So, would you be OK with replacing the physical barriers
| with, say, spikes that would tear up a car's tires and
| instantly cause an accident, should the car try to cross the
| line? Just to make the disincentive more effective?
| avianlyric wrote:
| Your situations are not comparable. It's impossible for a
| human to tell the difference between methanol and ethanol
| using our readily available senses. Once the methylated
| spirit is removed from its container there's nothing to warn
| someone the alcohol is poison that will probably intoxicate,
| then kill or blind them. Methylated sprits substantially
| increase the risk of death for no other advantage than to
| prevent tax evasion. It's the equivalent of deciding the
| punishment for tax evasion is to execute one in every hundred
| tax evaders.
|
| Physical barriers on the other hand are both obvious to car
| drivers, there's no situation where a car driver believes a
| physical barrier might be safe to drive into, and more
| importantly, physical barriers are used to protect other road
| users, not punish people. So you're trading an increased risk
| of death to prevent bad driving, you're increasing the risk
| of driver death to reduce deaths caused by bad driving. If
| drivers regularly strike a barrier that protects a school, it
| would be completely _unreasonable_ to remove that barrier,
| and allow drivers to strike children instead.
| jessriedel wrote:
| > It's impossible for a human to tell the difference...
|
| You are arguing that the risk of accidental poisoning by
| methanol is in fact high. Thats an empirical question, and
| I explicitly agreed in my comment that if the risk is high
| then this is not a good method of disincentive.
| Importantly, your argument is _not_ the one I was
| rebutting, that poisons are bad disincentives because they
| are inhumane punishments for tax evasion.
|
| But more to your point: methanol poisoning is often used in
| situations where the potential drinkers are highly
| informed, e.g., people ordering chemicals out of a catalog.
| The risk, ultimately, is an empirical question, and you are
| invited to check how often accidental poisonings of this
| type happen.
|
| > It's the equivalent of deciding the punishment for tax
| evasion is to execute one in every hundred tax evaders.
|
| It's not, both in terms of numbers and in terms of
| principle.
|
| > physical barriers are used to protect other road user...
|
| You have misinterpreted my comment. I did not refer to
| _protective_ barriers. There are plenty of examples where
| metal posts and concrete barriers are used to stop cars
| from getting to places where they would be a nuisance but
| not dangerous (e.g., pay parking lots, dedicated express
| lanes, and "no thru traffic" barriers).
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > It's the equivalent of deciding the punishment for tax
| evasion is to execute one in every hundred tax evaders.
|
| And no doubt causing permanent blindness in an even higher
| number of survivors.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC1771266/
|
| > During summertime, the patient had earned his living by
| fire eating at different Spanish locations.
|
| > According to the patient, a sudden episode of hiccough
| during fire eating caused accidental ingestion of denatured
| alcohol containing methanol.
|
| > Our patient demonstrates that accidental ingestion of
| even small amounts of denatured alcohol containing methanol
| can cause irreversible blindness with intracerebral
| lesions.
|
| > As a clear, colourless, volatile liquid with a weak
| odour, methanol is difficult to differentiate from other
| forms of alcohols such as ethanol.
|
| > Methanol is rapidly absorbed not only after oral
| ingestion but by inhalation or after cutaneous exposure and
| becomes oxidised in the liver to formaldehyde and to formic
| acid, metabolites which are more toxic than methanol itself
| arpa wrote:
| Even more so, counterfeit drinks contaminated with methanol
| have killed people who accidentally bought and unknowingly
| consumed said drinks, even in bars! Becherovka incidents
| come to mind.
|
| so you're not killing tax evaders, but rather random
| innocents.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > If it's extremely rare, then this is a reasonable use case
|
| I don't really see the point of risking poisoning people as a
| way of dissuading tax dodging especially when alternatives
| exist. In the same way we don't put solid barriers on roads
| unless people walking need to be protected - when a barrier
| is there to dissuade a driver it's designed so a car runs
| through a barrier without hurting the driver and passengers.
| jessriedel wrote:
| > I don't really see the point of risking poisoning people
| as a way of dissuading tax dodging especially when
| alternatives exist.
|
| You're not disagreeing with what I wrote.
|
| > In the same way we don't put solid barriers on roads
| unless people walking need to be protected
|
| Not true. We also put up barriers when people driving over
| the line would merely be a nuisance, e.g. in parking lots
| or to keep people from entering closed areas.
| exmadscientist wrote:
| > there's no technical reason to use poison
|
| Yes, there is. Methanol and ethanol are very chemically similar
| and small amounts of methanol in your ethanol is usually
| acceptable from a chemical standpoint. But denatonium benzoate
| is not like ethanol, and can be a contaminant that destroys the
| process.
|
| To get around this, you either have to find old-fashioned
| methylated spirits in very high purity, pay the alcohol taxes
| (which are stratospheric on 200 proof...), or file a crapton of
| paperwork to buy ethanol tax-free because you're doing
| chemistry things with it, not drinking it. The latter is what
| big operations do, but it's a giant pain in the ass if you are
| _not_ a big operation and you just need moderate volumes of
| high purity alcohol for your critical cleaning operations....
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Labs aren't buying their stuff at Walmart, so I don't know
| why they'd by affected by any remotely reasonable law. The
| supply houses can keep selling methylated alcohol, but let's
| get the unnecessary poisons off store shelves and out of
| consumer cabinets.
| exmadscientist wrote:
| No disagreement from me. I'm just saying there _is_ a
| technical reason to use methanol denaturants sometimes.
| oddeyed wrote:
| When I had Covid in December, I briefly lost my sense of smell
| and taste (only for a few days, thankfully). I decided I would
| see if the Switch cartridges tasted as bad as I remembered -
| purely in the interests of science, of course.
|
| I couldn't taste it at first, but then the wave of toxic
| unpleasantness slowly built up, even after I had moved the
| cartridge away from my tongue. It was different than I remembered
| it being, but then again it had been a few years since I tried it
| (probably spurred by this same headline). Really horrible. Good
| to know that this bitterant it still is a deterrent if you have
| anosmia!
| divbzero wrote:
| That is really interesting, especially because you could
| compare the taste with vs. without anosmia. Thank you for
| trying that for the sake of science and glad you recovered
| shortly thereafter.
| jms703 wrote:
| Save you a click:
|
| "A bittering agent (Denatonium Benzoate) has also been applied to
| the game card,"
|
| To prevent children from eating them.
| rtkwe wrote:
| I learned about this when it first came out and Jeff Gerstmann
| just shoved one in his mouth.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzw0rWubE_4
| pimlottc wrote:
| This is directly referenced in the article, there's a gif of it
| too
| ortusdux wrote:
| The same bitterant has been used in anti-freeze for about a
| decade now to help prevent poisonings of children and animals. It
| is also used in air duster cans, which I've found annoying
| because it can go from your keyboard to your fingers.
| criddell wrote:
| I think air duster cans for cleaning firearms does not have the
| bitterant in it.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Given my friend's dog licked up a bunch of antifreeze a couple
| months ago, I'd say it doesn't work very well.
| ortusdux wrote:
| It's the most bitter compound know to humans, with a
| detectability down to 0.05 ppm, and average aversion dosing
| around 10ppm. Lab tests show that some animals require
| 100,000 times the dose before detection. This discrepancy is
| leveraged for another application - making rat poison
| repulsive to children without reducing its efficacy.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00319.
| ..
| jakear wrote:
| I take small pride in the idea there's something I can
| taste better than my dog. All I ever hear is how their
| senses are orders more heightened than our own. Do you know
| if there are any smells that humans can detect better than
| dogs?
| duderific wrote:
| I've seen dogs eat cat poop, so maybe they're not the target
| audience. Not sure what it would take to make a dog not eat
| something.
| klyrs wrote:
| Windshield wiper fluid, too. I got a little on my fingers once,
| and didn't notice for a few hours, when I licked a finger...
| what _is_ that flavor... probably licked it a dozen times
| before I remembered. Whoops. Problem is, I like bitter flavors,
| and that one was just fascinating.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| > It is also used in air duster cans
|
| obligatory:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-jp3bgyUCo&ab_channel=A%26E
| amelius wrote:
| This type of coating is also on Duracell batteries.
| MBCook wrote:
| I had to buy some coin cell batteries a few months ago (CR2032s
| or similar) and was surprised to see the package proclaiming
| they'd done that. Made sense, but had never thought of the need
| before.
| isthisnametaken wrote:
| Kids swallowing coin cell batteries is a recurring and very
| serious problem. Hospitals will take it very seriously
| (x-rays, etc) if there's even a suspicion that one has been
| swallowed.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Coin cell batteries can kill toddlers within 48-72 hours if
| swallowed. Even if they don't kill, they can cause terrible
| internal burns when the gut shorts the terminals.
|
| If there is _any_ suspicion of swallowing a coin cell, go
| direct to hospital. Do not give the child anything to eat or
| drink until given the all clear.
|
| http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-29610570
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > "A bittering agent (Denatonium Benzoate) has also been applied
| to the game card," the spokesperson said, adding that Nintendo
| recommends keeping Switch cartridges away from children "to avoid
| the possibility of accidental ingestion." The representative also
| noted that denatonium benzoate is non-toxic.
|
| That was unexpected and interesting.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Note that non-toxic does not mean edible, as the FDA recently
| clarified due to many people being severely poisoned from
| eating cakes decorated with luster dust meant for crafting.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7043a2.htm
|
| You would think that if something says non-toxic, licking it
| shouldn't kill you, but apparently not.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| One of the basic principles of toxicology is "the dose makes
| the poison".
|
| From an OSHA perspective, "toxic" means (amongst other
| things) a mean-lethal-dose (LD50) of up to 500 mg per
| kilogram of bodyweight when ingested orally in lab rats.
|
| There's all kind of stuff that doesn't meet the standard of
| toxic that you still wouldn't want to eat.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| And there's stuff that is toxic that you do want to eat.
| Check your multivitamin, there's stuff in there that would
| kill you at that level.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Also, for example, aspirin.
| yread wrote:
| So at LD50 of 508 mg/kg you could call it "barely non-
| toxic"
| umanwizard wrote:
| What _does_ it mean, then?
| [deleted]
| earthscienceman wrote:
| Wait. WTF does non-toxic mean then? Non-toxic to touch? I
| don't fathom what they're trying to communicate then..
| Sebb767 wrote:
| If anyone else is wondering, the only somewhat concise
| explanation I found was this[0]:
|
| > Non-toxic is essentially a placebo term and unlike food-
| safe or food-grade products, has little to no government
| regulation in terms of its accuracy. [...]
|
| > What non-toxic means is that the product contains no
| ingredients that have been linked to toxic responses in
| humans. Toxic responses are things like hormone disruption,
| poisoning, or cancer.
|
| [0] https://www.greenmatters.com/p/does-non-toxic-mean-food-
| safe
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Dose makes the poison.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8351798/
|
| > The toxicity of denatonium benzoate is low with acute po
| LD50's in rats of 485-740 mg/kg.
|
| https://www.chemsrc.com/en/cas/3734-33-6_1028011.html
| TYPE OF TEST: LD50 - Lethal dose, 50 percent kill
| ROUTE OF EXPOSURE: Oral SPECIES OBSERVED:
| Rodent - rat DOSE/DURATION: 584 mg/kg
| DOSE/DURATION: 508 mg/kg
|
| Non-toxic definitely means that common exposure to the
| product shouldn't pose serious risks to one's health. In
| other words, licking a Nintendo Switch cartridge should not
| result in a dose of denatonium anywhere near high enough to
| cause any deleterious health effects. Drinking entire bottles
| of the stuff probably will.
|
| This luster dust apparently contains lead, how these
| manufacturers managed to conclude that it is non-toxic is
| beyond me.
| hoangdung123 wrote:
| yeah
| RIMR wrote:
| I hate how in the matter of like 2 minutes I can be goaded into
| doing something dumb like licking the cartridge right out of my
| Switch, only to learn precisely the lesson I could have learned
| by simply reading the article: That the cartridges taste
| profoundly offensive.
| ctf1er wrote:
| If covid happened 30 years ago, I can imagine public safety ads
| about kids sharing and blowing on NES catridges to make them
| work, quite a vector.
| bityard wrote:
| You know what happens when you tell kids/teens not to do
| something, right?
| spidersouris wrote:
| But at least with such a taste left in their mouths, they'll
| surely _not_ do it.
| siltpotato wrote:
| dlbucci wrote:
| Well, they aren't just telling them not to do it, they are
| physically dissuading them from doing so. This is probably a
| lot more effective than a warning sticker to not put the
| cartridge in their mouth.
| dahfizz wrote:
| The irony, of course, is that everyone's reaction to hearing
| about the bittering agent is to immediately lick a cartridge
| to taste it for themselves.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Have you seriously never tasted something after someone told
| you, "this thing tastes awful"?
| donatj wrote:
| It seems to fade with age/handling. Brand new cartridges taste
| really bad. My several year old ones taste fine.
| erwincoumans wrote:
| Touching you tongue to both terminals of a small 9V battery also
| tasts bad and sour. I've done it several times as a kid, checking
| if a battery was (almost) empty :)
| lilyball wrote:
| I cannot taste "bitter" (it's a genetic thing), though bittering
| agents used in food/drinks do taste very unpleasant to me (I
| don't know what it is I'm tasting in those or why it's so
| unpleasant).
|
| I have not tried licking a Switch cartridge.
|
| Does anyone know if Denatonium Benzoate will still taste bad to
| me, or is the badness entirely contained in the "bitter" that I
| cannot taste? I could experiment myself but I've resisted the
| urge to lick the cartridges for 5 years and I'm not particularly
| fond of the idea of tasting something awful.
|
| Edit: Looking more at this in Wikipedia, it sounds like the
| genetic inability to taste bitter is specific to the TASR38
| receptor, and that Denatonium Benzoate targets a different set of
| receptors. I am not a subject matter expert here, but it sounds
| to me like I should be able to still taste it.
| countvonbalzac wrote:
| Probably so little kids don't eat them
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yeah it says that in the article.
|
| "A bittering agent (Denatonium Benzoate) has also been applied
| to the game card," the spokesperson said, adding that Nintendo
| recommends keeping Switch cartridges away from children "to
| avoid the possibility of accidental ingestion."
|
| It's somewhat common practice, some products will even say
| "contains a bittering agent to prevent ingestion" somewhere on
| the container. I believe engine coolants are required to have
| it.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > I believe engine coolants are required to have it.
|
| This has been successfully used to poison people in the past.
| The end result is heart failure, which is not a
| surprising/suspicious outcome for a large portion of people.
| joshuaheard wrote:
| Exactly, it's so babies don't choke on them.
| Flankk wrote:
| spicybright wrote:
| Uhh, ok?
| mattlondon wrote:
| Thanks Nintendo. There are undoubtedly a bunch of kids around
| still today who avoided having A Bad Time because of this (...and
| the kids won't even know it)
|
| Good work.
| honkycat wrote:
| I remember seeing this at the time, and trying to lick a
| cartridge.
|
| No effect, tastes like nothing to me. This is because I am a non-
| taster.
|
| I have notoriously blunt taste amongst my loved ones, sometimes
| they won't even waste good wine on me, ha!
|
| Another example of not tasting bitter: I am rather fond of
| Jeppson's Malort, a meme liquor popular in Chicago for its
| extremely bitter taste. Personally, I think it tastes bad, but do
| not have the same reaction as many other people.
| bserge wrote:
| Jaxkr wrote:
| I waited outside GameStop on launch day to snag a Switch with my
| friend. We had heard about the bittering agent applied to the
| cartridges by day two and immediately tasted them ourselves.
|
| Hard to believe the Switch is five years old...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| What's hard to believe is that Nintendo is still milking what
| was already an ancient screen and SoC for all its worth, or
| that despite making container-ship levels of profits off the
| Switch, they haven't bothered to make joycons last longer than
| their warranty period.
| njovin wrote:
| I have a fond memory of camping outside a Target from ~10:00p
| to 6:00a when the Wii was launched. We hung out with a group of
| strangers in camping chairs, talked about our favorite games,
| and tried to keep warm. When the Starbucks bakery delivery came
| a few hours before the store opened the driver gave us all free
| pastries.
|
| The Wii ended up being a very disappointing launch experience
| IMO but we had a fun time waiting for one.
| atom-morgan wrote:
| I have a not so fond memory camping out in Walmart for my
| Wii. I think we could just stay inside since it was 24hrs and
| they were selling them right at midnight.
|
| I got home, turned on the Wii, and was asked to insert a
| startup disc. I searched that box at least 20 times trying to
| find the disc with no luck.
|
| I was a heavy user of GameSpot's forums at the time and asked
| about this disc. Literally everyone thought I was trolling.
| Nobody believed me until I uploaded photos of my TV.
|
| Eventually my dad called Nintendo and they shipped out a new
| one ASAP but my 16 year old self was so pissed given all the
| hype going into it. Days waiting with a useless Wii staring
| back at me.
|
| Startup Disc: https://lostmediawiki.com/Wii_Startup_Disc_(fou
| nd_software_d...
| jimmaswell wrote:
| It had Twilight Princess which is good enough for me to call
| it a great launch. Wii Sports was fun too.
| eternityforest wrote:
| The early 2000s were like the peak of tech.
|
| Video games are kinda just OK now. The actual experience was
| always like 70% set and setting. The game companies put a lot
| of effort into the games themselves but where are the LAN
| parties and release events? Where is.... any other aspect of
| gaming except the games?
|
| Esports youtubers don't really replace split screen
| multiplayer.
| meristohm wrote:
| Videogames are just getting started. The Breath and depth
| of games is growing, and like with novels and moving
| pictures not all games are great.
| capableweb wrote:
| > the LAN parties
|
| I dearly miss LAN parties so much. Used to help coordinate
| one recurring one back in early 2000s. We had so much fun
| when Battlefield Vietnam was released and everyone was
| playing it together while sitting next to each other and
| speaking mostly in expletives. DC++ was a huge factor as
| well, especially when someone with a 100GB hard-drive from
| the biggest city nearby arrived and could share everything
| they managed to pull down from the almighty broadband
| connection they had.
| [deleted]
| jb1991 wrote:
| Tldr if you don't want to immediately spit it out, you might have
| Covid.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Now I wonder how sensitive for COVID-19 the Switch cartridge
| licking test is...
| Xavdidtheshadow wrote:
| This lead to some great headlines as the Switch was launching:
|
| > Sure, Breath of the Wild is fun; but how does it taste?
| MBCook wrote:
| I know this isn't new but I still love that Nintendo did this.
| It's such a Nintendo thing. They're a toy company and think like
| one.
|
| Did Sony do this with the Vita cartridges? I don't remember
| hearing so (and never thought to taste them?).
|
| Heh.
| badlucklottery wrote:
| >Did Sony do this with the Vita cartridges?
|
| Well, wonder no longer. I just licked a PS Vita copy of World
| of Final Fantasy and it only tastes faintly of plastic.
| flatiron wrote:
| My SD2Vita also doesn't taste too bad ;)
| jonny_eh wrote:
| What about the microSD?
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Just the idea of it makes me nauseous
| nitwit005 wrote:
| I appreciate the effort to answer these important questions.
| tomcam wrote:
| SCIENCE
|
| and thank you
| mywittyname wrote:
| It's not SCIENCE until somebody replicates the OP's
| results.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| It's actually amazing how Nintendo's "Focus on 1P titles and
| make HW that is appealing to the masses" used to be its
| greatest disadvantage and is now probably the only reason for
| their existence.
|
| Kind of Japan's Apple in some ways (with SEGA unfortunately
| being Japan's NeXT).
| hbn wrote:
| It's really true, I definitely get the same feeling using
| Nintendo products as I do using Apple's. A constant struggle
| of love and hate. A company that's doing things in its space
| so differently than all its competitors, and is in a
| completely unique situation from the rest that allows them to
| do those things so differently. Occasionally annoying and
| archaic with their inability to get with the times in certain
| areas.
|
| But I use their products, and love them anyway. Cause
| generally (with exceptions, of course) they create some of
| the very few computers/consoles/software out there that feels
| like it had someone constantly questioning whether the thing
| is fun/nice to use throughout the design process.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Complete with kind of a weird takeover/resurrection story:
|
| https://stoneagegamer.com/blog/the-xbox-almost-the-
| dreamcast...
| jmole wrote:
| Sony is Japan's Apple if anyone is.
|
| A company like Nintendo doesn't seem like it has an American
| equivalent, and I actually can't imagine a company like that
| surviving the ups and downs of the 80s/90s/00s tech cycles in
| the US, especially with our tendency towards M&A.
| Dig1t wrote:
| That comparison aside, I think Nintendo and Apple are very
| similar in a spiritual sense. They both love vertical
| integration, they both love to own as much of the software
| and hardware stack as possible, they both have a perceived
| emphasis on quality, independence of thought, they don't
| play nicely with others as much as they can get away with,
| they both have super loyal, obsessive fanbases, and they
| have literal mountains of cash because of this attitude
| within their respective industries. I think Sony is in a
| similar line of business as Apple but they don't have the
| same attitude that these two share.
|
| Another company I'd lump in with these 2 would be Disney
| for the same reasons as above.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| I would disagree - No one ever really assumed Sony would go
| out of business from a fundamental standpoint. They may
| have gone through a period of diminished value and failed
| projects (laptops, smartphones, etc.), but the PlayStation
| has always been a hit, the media arm has always been a 'Top
| 4' player, the headphones were always category-leading, the
| camera sensors were always top notch, and I'm sure I'm
| missing many other aspects of their business. If anything
| that brings to mind MSFT (who's always led in core areas,
| but has also had periods of diminished value and failed
| projects).
|
| On the other hand, many people thought Nintendo (as we know
| it at least) might go belly-up in the Gamecube and Wii U
| eras. There was real talk of them becoming a game dev with
| no hardware if the Switch was as much of a failure [0].
| Similar to the talk around Apple post-Newton, pre-iBook.
|
| [0]https://www.gonintendo.com/stories/376204-after-the-
| failure-...
| TylerE wrote:
| I don't get the Sony:Apple comparison at all.
|
| If anything, Sony is Japan's Microsoft: Do a gazillion
| things, many of them poorly, to such a unfocused extent
| that some of your divisions actually end up competition
| with each other.
|
| Like in Sony's case, how they've had internal battles for
| decades between the device side (that wants to make devices
| that are useful) and the content side (that wants DRM out
| the ass on everything)
| astrange wrote:
| Sony is older than Apple and was one of Steve Jobs' main
| inspirations. He even wanted to make everyone wear
| uniforms (which Sony and Nintendo still did then) -
| that's where his same outfit every day habit came from.
|
| They weren't focused back then, but neither was Apple.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| _Sony is older than Apple..._
|
| Unrelated to your point, but Nintendo is older than Sony
| and Apple combined. Apple 45 years
| Sony 75 years Nintendo 132 years
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| Didn't Jobs also offer Sony to make laptops that ran OS
| X?
|
| Also, random thing, but both Orbis (Playstation operating
| system) and OS X are based on FreeBSD.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Apparently they even made an official Sony VAIO
| Hackintosh.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5380832/sony-vaio-
| apple-os...
| mattkevan wrote:
| Pretty sure OS X is based on the Mach/XNU kernel and
| Darwin, not FreeBSD.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's a bit of an amalgam, and it honestly depends on
| which version of OSX you're talking about. Mach itself
| was designed as an improvement over BSD, and it was more
| or less a microkernel developed around BSD concepts with
| binary compatibility. My understanding is that as time
| went on, performance issues and security concerns forced
| Apple to poach more and more BSD code onto Mach, which
| leaves us with the pretty messy codebase they use today.
| Supposedly (?) a lot of the zombie code is being cleaned
| up internally, but it's been an ongoing, multi-year
| process for Apple, probably made even more difficult with
| their bonafide UNIX certification.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| Thank you for the clear and concise explanation (: It was
| very informative.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| I thought there was _some_ influence on the kernel from
| FreeBSD, even if not that much. I am aware the kernel is
| not the FreeBSD one, though.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation
| /Da... seems to have information on this.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| I dont know if you can say that Sony is doing stuff
| "poorly". Most of the hardware they make is very solid.
| Think about their speakers, headphones, the consoles,
| etc. But yes i agree, they are a huge company with a lot
| of divisions where sometimes the decisions are at odds.
| Which parts do you think are doing poorly?
| ngngngng wrote:
| Which parts do you think are doing poorly?
|
| The names of their products. How do you keep anything
| straight when the name of each product is UUID?
| toast0 wrote:
| That's easy, UUIDs are unique, so it's easy to tell them
| apart, although it's hard to group them. Much better than
| deciding what the heck 'new iPad' means or if you want a
| new old 3ds or a used new 3ds, or if updating iOS means
| your phone or your router.
| easrng wrote:
| To be fair, Cisco IOS and Apple iOS are not from the same
| company and aren't really in the same field.
| toast0 wrote:
| Sure, but Apple had to buy the rights to the trademark
| for iOS from the same company they had to buy the rights
| for the trademark for iPhone.
| spiderice wrote:
| Just because Apple has had some bad names doesn't make
| Sony's names better. Don't compare Sony's naming
| conventions with iPad, compare them with iPhone, which is
| significantly easier.
|
| Q: Which iPhone do you have A: iPhone 12 Pro Max (I
| choose this one because it's one of the longer iPhone
| names)
|
| vs
|
| Q: Which Sony headphones do you have A: MX 4 or something
| like that. Let me check my Amazon order history. Oh yeah,
| here it is. The WH-1000XM4
|
| I'd much prefer the iPhone naming convention to what Sony
| does, and Apple having screwed up the iPad naming doesn't
| really excuse Sony here.
| grenoire wrote:
| It's not entirely about the business structure or its
| fundamental revenue sources. Don't think like an
| accountant here, it's about the brand. In terms of being
| the top-tier tech and hardware firm of your nation, Sony
| _is_ Japan 's Apple. It's a strong household name too,
| regardless of their conglomerate style being close to
| Microsoft.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| It took them twenty years to give up trying to push
| Memory Stick, a product that was made irrelevant in
| barely four years by SD cards.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| I pin the failure of the Vita (a system designed around
| downloadable games with hardware buttons) on the need to
| use proprietary memory. Yes, Sony made more off of the
| proprietary memory than off of SD/uSD cards, but
| handicapped the system and made the downloadable games
| that should have been its bread and butter an expensive
| proposition for users.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _Do a gazillion things, many of them poorly_
|
| What does Sony do poorly? Sony has the same dysfunction
| Apple has - everything has to be invented in house. If
| you told me that a company invented an high end camera
| that 20% more than the competitors and used proprietary
| connectors and memory cards, I wouldn't be surprised if
| that was Apple.
|
| > _decades between the device side (that wants to make
| devices that are useful) and the content side (that wants
| DRM out the ass on everything)_
|
| Remember FairPlay?
| TylerE wrote:
| Aibo?
|
| The Qualia fiasco?
|
| PSPgo?
| hermitdev wrote:
| > Remember FairPlay?
|
| Was FairPlay the name of the rootkit they'd install if
| you tried to play one of their audio CDs in a Windows PC?
| easrng wrote:
| FairPlay is Apple's DRM.
| klodolph wrote:
| Seems like Nintendo tried the same strategy over and over
| again, and it sometimes works due to the right confluence of
| decent hardware design (not all of their hardware is good)
| and the right circumstances.
|
| It worked for the Game Boy. Its competitors were more
| powerful, but it turns out that people would rather not spend
| more money for a color screen if it your system chews through
| a set of six AA batteries in three hours.
|
| It worked for the Switch. Its competitors were more powerful,
| but it turns out that people like the portability, and it
| doesn't seem like they're getting cut-down inferior versions
| of games for other systems.
|
| It didn't work so well for the N64, Game Cube, or Wii U.
| kbelder wrote:
| They really are an interesting company. They are slower than
| Sony/MS, yet more innovative at the same time. They make a
| fair amount of bone-headed decisions, but I certainly _trust_
| them more than I do most other tech companies.
|
| Especially back in the PS3/XBox360/Wii days, they seemed like
| the only thing stopping the VG industry from a nofun
| dystopian duopoly.
| vlunkr wrote:
| It's interesting that Sony and MS have not even attempted
| to compete directly with the Switch, despite it being a
| massive success. They're kind of in their own market right
| now, which is where they usually succeed (like the Wii).
| Steam is coming in 5 years late with the Game Gear 2, so I
| guess we'll see how that goes.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| I think Microsoft is trying to compete via cloud
| streaming of games -- saying "you can play Halo on
| basically any device with an internet connection" is a
| compelling argument, even if they have a ways to go to
| make it a compelling experience.
| okl wrote:
| Synthesis of the substance:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOw_I42eUpM
| simlevesque wrote:
| NileRed is a national treasure !
| tablespoon wrote:
| > People have speculated that the manufacturing process for
| Switch cartridges involves coating them in a layer of foul-
| tasting film, so as to discourage people from, well, putting the
| cartridges in their mouths. (Why do you think Play-Doh is so
| bitter and salty?)
|
| IIRC, Play-Doh is basically flour and the salt is there as a
| preservative.
| svachalek wrote:
| I think it's more than that, it has something to do with its
| consistency. You can find recipes to make your own and they all
| use a seemingly ridiculous amount of salt.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Probably something to do with absorbing or that is storing
| moisture. Want to keep it relatively moist.
| setgree wrote:
| Can you wash off the bittering agent? The article does not
| specify and I want to know for...hypothetical reasons
| spicybright wrote:
| They're computer chips, not regular chips silly.
| ant6n wrote:
| U can wash regular chips?
| magneticnorth wrote:
| According to another comment, the bittering agent is in the
| sticker, so presumably you could remove the sticker before
| consuming your switch cartridge.
| isk517 wrote:
| Forgetting to remove the sticker before adding the cartridge
| is a common mistake many new and inexperienced chefs make.
| emptybottle wrote:
| This sounds similar to what is now done to button cell batteries
| to deter kids from putting them in their mouths.
|
| I've never tried tasting either but I wonder if the process is
| the same?
| 99_00 wrote:
| >Why do you think Play-Doh is so bitter and salty?
|
| I didn't know that it was. Interesting that they assume this is
| common knowledge. Other people must be putting a lot more in
| their months than me.
| Decabytes wrote:
| I mention this trivia to almost all my friends when they come
| over. Many have given it a kick to see for themselves
| xcambar wrote:
| So... you mean that almost all your friends have licked a
| Switch game of yours?
|
| Not my kind of fetish but ok. :)
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